Audit: DCFS was a disaster during the impasse
Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Exerpts from the Illinois Auditor General’s latest report on DCFS…
• The hotline is unable to take calls as they are received, resulting in call backs. The number of call backs increased substantially during FY15-FY17, from 39.6 percent of total calls in FY15 to 55.7 percent in FY17.
• Investigator caseloads were not in compliance with the B.H. Consent Decree. For FY15-FY17, 78.7 percent of investigators (729 of 926) had at least 1 month during the audit period in which they received more than 15 new assignments. […]
• The overall timeliness of completion for investigations declined significantly over the three-year period FY15-FY17. In FY15, 7.6 percent of investigations were not completed within 60 days. For FY17, 12.4 percent of investigations were not completed within 60 days.
• Investigators did not always accurately document that they assessed the need for services by completing the Level of Intervention field in the Department’s information system known as SACWIS. Of indicated investigations sampled, 16 investigations (10.7%) had no Level of Intervention listed (services recommended). Further, 39 indicated investigations (26.0%) had “No Service Needed” as the Level of Intervention. Additionally, of the investigations sampled, for 64 (42.7%) we found that the Level of Intervention was inaccurate.
• For 65.3 percent of indicated investigations sampled, there was a lack of documentation regarding whether any services were received by the families involved and the duration of those services. The Department could not provide basic information for Intact Family Service cases, such as referral forms, to document that a formal referral for services was made. […]
According to data provided by the Department, for FY15-FY17 the number of abuse and neglect investigations increased significantly, going from 67,732 in FY15 to 75,037 in FY17 or 10.8 percent. Within the three-year timeframe, there was a notable spike in FY16 to 78,572 investigations. The increase in investigations between FY15 and FY16 represents an increase of 16.0 percent. As is shown in Digest Exhibit 1, indication rates (the percentage of cases where there was credible evidence that the incident occurred) decreased during FY15- FY17, from 28.3 percent in FY15 to 24.8 percent in FY17.
* From the full report…
The Department also does not have written procedures regarding the process for calling back individuals who report allegations of abuse or neglect that do not complete the intake process at the time of their initial call.
* Meanwhile, from Fox 32’s Natalie Bomke…
“Two years ago we were at basically a crisis point. I had on my caseload 80 pending investigations. Some of my colleagues had up to 100 pending investigations,” said 24 year DCFS veteran Stephen Mittons.
Mittons has worked as an investigator his entire tenure with the agency. In March alone, he says DCFS investigators received 6800 reported abuse or neglect cases. Investigators have 60 days to close or outsource a case.
Right now, Mittons is working on 40 cases. Alishia Glover is also an investigator. Her service area is more than 130 square miles, from the South Side of Chicago to the southwest suburbs.
“Nine to 5 is almost non-existant as a child protection investigator and a typical day really isn’t typical,” Glover said.
- Juvenal - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:10 am:
This is a damning report.
I would like to know from the leaders still at DCFS who were there when this happened how they allowed this to happen.
I’d like to know how the ACLU, who is supposed to be the court-appointed monitor, failed to notice that there were caseworkers with 100 pending cases when the consent decree is no more than 15.
- Honeybear - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:13 am:
Oh my God. I knew it was really bad. I knew it was taking a huge toll on those folks. I know those investigators personally, not well, but…..I’m just speechless.
It also brings the rage at the Rauner administration back.
I’m just kinda foundering in this.
We have to do better for our vulnerable children.
Gov Pritzker
Needs to put this
front and center.
This could be his Quincy home
if he doesn’t
Really really stay
right on top of this.
BPIA™
I’m telling you
your best
hear me?
- wordslinger - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:16 am:
Who knew that Rauner’s planned, willful destruction of social services would result in more dysfunction and an inability to deal with it?
Besides sentient beings who gave a hoot, that is?
- Anyone Remember - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:22 am:
“Crisis creates leverage.”
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/gov-rauner-s-rocky-start-calls-into-question-the-ceo/article_eb6e9bd6-f5a9-59fc-950c-7a5542b50e92.html
- Give Me A Break - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:32 am:
This must have been what the Chamber’s Todd was talking about when he told Ruaner to “keep up the good work”. Remember that Todd? You said it, you and your members own this.
- lakeside - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:34 am:
These front line workers got slammed with extra cases, and they’re the ones who shoulder the blame (both public and personally) when families obviously fall through the cracks. And Rauner sells his house for millions and does whatever he wants for the rest of his life. So cool.
- MG85 - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:38 am:
Imagine, if you will, making an argument today that we must cut spending and “make the hard choices” to straighten out our fiscal house.
Now imagine making that argument knowing such a decision will lead to more deaths of children and elderly veterans in IDVA nursing homes all to spare the top 3% in Illinois from paying their fair share.
Now imagine what kind of person you must be to know that’s what your argument means and to still run ads, build a faux news site, a faux think-tank, or run a political campaign on such knowledge.
Good grief.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:48 am:
DCFS is going to need a huge budget increase, and if any Republicans balk, make them answer for this.
- Reality Check - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 11:58 am:
@Juvenal the BH standard refers to *new cases in a month. That limit is 12 new cases per month, or in exceptional circumstances, 15. The news story refers to pending cases. That includes new cases as well as those carried over from the previous month.
- Flat Bed Ford - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 12:01 pm:
DCFS has been a disaster for years if not decades. Impasse made a horrible problem worse but DCFS has major issues beforehand.
- Give Me A Break - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 12:06 pm:
Flat Bed: No one disputes that as no one should dispute the fact Rauner and his “pro-business, Chamber of Commerce friends” made it worse.
- siualum - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 12:33 pm:
When I see these articles about how DCFS is doing, all I can think about is poor Pamela Knight, the caseworker who was murdered by the father of the child she was trying to rescue near Sterling.
- Merica - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 12:35 pm:
Politically speaking, I would love to blame Rauner for all of this. But on an anonymous message board, I’ll take a risk and suggest that isn’t the truth.
- 42% of sampled investigations had inaccuracies
- 65% had insufficient documentation
- the department doesn’t use its own tools or provide required training.
- the department can’t receive phone call reports and calls back half the time.
To me the biggest surprise was that 75% of all investigations occur outside of Cook County. Did I read that right?
- Honeybear - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 12:38 pm:
-all I can think about is poor Pamela Knight-
She died protecting our vulnerable Illinois children.
There needs to be a statue or a highway named or a school…..something.
We shouldn’t make her death meaningless and forgotten.
- Sue - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 12:59 pm:
Yea it’s all the impasse- pre2015 DCFS was a model of efficiency and competency
- Adm Stockd'le - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 1:05 pm:
may be cathartic to blame past Gov, but the complex enforcement issues inherent within the struggle b/w DCFS v. adults (both good & bad parents) extends decades beyond one audit; this is just a recurring snapshot of the bigger picture
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 1:17 pm:
===extends decades beyond one audit===
Yes, we are all aware of that. But it clearly got much worse during the impasse. So perhaps the impasse was a gigantic mistake? Turned a crisis into a disaster?
Try thinking about that before posting yet another knee-jerk comment.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 1:45 pm:
–Yea it’s all the impasse–
Said no one, ever. Yet it remains the Raunerbot rallying cry.
Building strawmen and knocking them down, over and over…. that must be a gnawing, terrible personal defeat, when that’s all you’ve got.
- Juvenal - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 1:55 pm:
Stop arguing “DCFS has always been a disaster” when the report clearly shows that DCFS was not a disaster when Rauner took over in 2015 and became a disaster in two short years.
Regarding case loads, clearly they were assigning cases in violation of BH. The report says so in plain English.
The audit reports are public documents. Find me another audit report like this since 1999 before arguing “DCFS has always been a disaster.”
- Juvenal - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 2:40 pm:
I looked at the summary for FY 2014.
Just 2.7 percent of cases were not closed within 60 days.
That was down from a high of 3.5 percent in 2013, the highest ever until Rauner took over.
There was no finding in FY 2014 that DCFS was assigning cases in violation of BH.
There was no finding in FY 2014 audit regarding the taking of any messages for hotline calls at all.
The Auditor General is documenting systemic failures that occured on Rauner’s watch. That is not a partisan point, but folks need to be realistic about how deep a hole has been dug and what it is going to take to fix it.
- Shemp - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 3:43 pm:
What is worse, the dysfunction in the State or the dysfunctional people of the state?
- Skirmisher - Tuesday, May 7, 19 @ 8:32 pm:
Rainer was utterly irresponsible but you can’t lay all this at his feet. One of my daughters is a DCFS caseworker and it was a nightmare situation long before Rauner. It was no better under Quinn, Blago, or Ryan. On a typical day, she gets home from work at 8:30 or later, having driven the entire length of the state (and more) both ways. And this has been the norm for many years. If you care about these kids (and most of these caseworkers really do), then you get very hard or the system destroys you. In any just society, the politicsl class who let this monstrous situation reach today’s proportions would have been stood against a wall. For all of Illinois’s problems, nothing is remotely as critical as this for anyone who has even a trace of a soul.